Movie Posters Privilege Art Over Commerce

[Dusty Ayres]

The quality of movie posters has been suffering in recent years. As the products of Hollywood studios come closer to resembling indiscernible mass entertainments, their posters have assumed the dubious instrumental function of falsely distinguishing them. Contemporary posters focus on a film’s star power ("STALLONE. STATHAM. LI. LUNDGREN."), connection to other film properties ("From the Director of The Dark Knight"), or other relevant selling points.
Where the one sheets and lobby cards of yesteryear may have taken a more minimalist style, designed to hint at a film’s emotional or thematic landscape (such as Saul Bass’s designs for Vertigo and The Shining) or exhibit a vibrant aesthetic on par, or even surpassing, that of the film they advertise (Frank McCarthy’s realist bills for Once Upon A Time in the West and several Bond movies), rendering them artifacts suitable for framing and home display, most contemporary movie posters are of interest to collectors only in their kitschy function as corporate detritus or as dorm room wallpaper. The influence of globalization has compounded the problem to a macro level, with film posters being virtually indistinguishable from country to country. Just look at the posters for David Twohy’s wonderful 2009 thriller A Perfect Getaway, which are virtually identical in their American, German, Vietnamese, and Brazilian iterations. But of course this wasn’t always the case.

Polish PolishMovie Posters Privilege Art Over Commerce


Here's a selection of some of the posters:

In the foreground: Wieslaw Walkuski horrifying poster art for Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali's Un Chien Andalou.

 

[Rii]

I like the one for Rosemary's Baby.

Incidentally, Poland's output features heavily in Cracked.com's articles 'Lost in Translation: 20 Baffling Foreign Movie Posters' and '15 Grossly Misleading Movie Posters'.


My favourites are the Russian Star Wars posters:

 

[Dusty Ayres]

I like the one for Rosemary's Baby.

Incidentally, Poland's output features heavily in Cracked.com's articles 'Lost in Translation: 20 Baffling Foreign Movie Posters' and '15 Grossly Misleading Movie Posters'.


My favourites are the Russian Star Wars posters:

And yet, this is considered the pinnacle of movie poster artwork.

Don't get me wrong, this is great artwork, but as an advertisement for the movie(s) and a way to convey what they're all about, it falls short.

 

[Rii]

Whereas superimposing a photochop of the actor(s) in profile over a still from the film achieves what, exactly? If chosen carefully, it might provide the viewer with a vague impression of the film's content. If not, it merely advertises the actors and such details as are likely irrelevant to one's interest in the film. "Oh, it's set in a city and is about a nervous woman with short hair? I LOVE films that are set in cities about nervous women with short hair."

Abstract art can do the job (i.e. advertising) just as well, it merely demands more from the viewer; and, in return, rewards more*, in that the viewer is likely to interpret the art in a manner amenable to their own inclinations, thus making them more likely to see the film. It strikes me that the most memorable American film posters I've seen - such as that for Alien - are relatively abstract too, they merely employ photography instead of illustration. The only thing abstraction can't give you is 'star power'. And as someone who couldn't care less who stars in a particular film, I can do without that.

The last memorable American film poster I can recall seeing was that for Quantum of Solace. Daniel Craig walks in a desert and carries a gun; I'm so seeing this film! Or maybe that wasn't the reason I liked it at all, but rather the sense of Bond's isolation and the film's austere stylings that the poster conveyed through its imagery, i.e. impressions that could also have been conveyed using more abstract art had the filmmakers been of a mind to do so.

* Assuming the viewer can be relied upon to attempt to interpret the art at all, which is merely a function of cultural conditioning, i.e. cumulative prior experience with such forms.

 

[Davros]

I miss the days when my dad and uncle were projectionists and we had full access to the closet of used movie posters.

 

[Harvey]

What I really hate is when something creative, like this ends up being replaced with something generic like this.

I think back to the poster of something like "The Anatomy of a Murder" and it's hard to imagine a modern day poster for the movie featuring anything other than a photo of Jimmy Stewart's mug.